Wednesday, 31 December 2014

Why India has to launch satelites from Kourou french guyana even when they have their own launch pads?

Why India has to launch satelites from Kourou french guyana even when they have their own launch pads?

The Guiana Space Centre or, more commonly, Centre spatial guyanais (CSG) is a French and European spaceport near Kourou in French Guiana. Operational since 1968, it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport as it fulfills the two major geographical requirements of such a site: it is quite close to the equator, so that the spinning earth can impart some extra velocity to the rockets for free when launched eastward, and it has uninhabited territory (in this case, open sea) to the east, so that lower stages of rockets and debris from launch failures cannot fall on human habitations. Kourou is located approximately 500 kilometres (310 mi) north of the equator, at a latitude of 5°10'. The near-equatorial launch location provides an advantage for launches to low-inclination (or geostationary) Earth orbits compared to launches from spaceports at higher latitude. For example, the eastward boost provided by the Earth's rotation is about 463 m/s (1,035 miles per hour) at the Guiana Space Centre versus about 406 m/s (908 miles per hour) at the United States east coast Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center spaceports which are at 28°27′N latitude in Florida. The proximity to the equator also makes maneuvering satellites for geosynchronous orbits simpler and less costly.